Summary

Protestation, indignation and resentment are common reactions in individuals who feel hurt and unable to repair the damage done to them. When normal reparation fails, archaic forms of restorative behaviour come into play and the latter perpetuate rather than repair the damage done to the patient’s internal objects. The inability to forgive and reconcile leads to perpetually repeating cycles, referred to as ‘repetition compulsion.’ Based on clinical material gathered during analysis with a borderline patient, this paper shows how the patient’s overwhelming grief and desire for vengeance is projected onto the analyst, arousing in the latter a desire for reparation which is consequently exposed to the same feeling of failure and guilt which the patient himself finds so difficult to bear. It is only when this experience may be borne and worked through that an outcome may be achieved and new developments brought into existence.